Welcome to Sugartown

“Now, if you’re done pissing all over our new roommate, do you mind if I show Elijah to his room?”

“Nope. Knock yourself out,” he says, then adds, “just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Ha! Is there anything you wouldn’t do?”

“Yeah, you’re right. Okay, don’t do anything Holly wouldn’t do.”

“You do realise that’s even worse?” Ana asks.

“What’s worse?” Holly asks, as she stumbles into the kitchen. Her hair is sticking up all around her head like a copper bird’s nest, and her clothes are swamping her. She’s clearly just woken from a nap, though she looks as though she hasn’t slept in days. She hasn’t seen me yet on account of me standing up against the wall beside the fridge, and she’s rummaging through the cupboard like her life depends on it. “Where’s the jailbird? I could use me some eye candy right about now.”

“Hey, I take offense to that,” Jackson says, and winks at her.

“You can sit on the fence, for all I care. Preferably one of those uber pointy picket fences.”

“Hey Holly,” I say nervously, as she spins around with her mouth gaping open. We’ve always rubbed each other the wrong way when it came to Ana. I know I don’t deserve Ana, I could work on redemption my entire life over and the next one, too, and I’d still never be enough for her. But I love her. I need her in my life, in any way she chooses to be in it, and I’m worried Holly is going to have something to say about that.

“You’re back?” Her eyes widen a little and glitter with unshed tears, and the next thing I know, she’s throwing herself at me. After a moment of blind panic where I assume she’s going to start using me as a punching bag and I realise that there’s no way in hell I can hit a woman so I’ll have to just stand there and take whatever fucked up punishment she thinks I deserve, I nearly keel over. Her arms wrap around my waist and she cries into my chest. I have no choice but to wrap my arms around her.

“It’s good to see you too, Holly.” I can feel my eyes are saucer-wide as they shoot between Ana and Jackson for answers.

Jackson sniggers, “Feeling a little clingy today, Hols?”

Holly uncurls her arms from around my waist and glares at Jackson. “Shut up, fuck-face! Did you eat the rest of my crackers?”

“Holly’s pregnant and tends to get a little … er … emotional lately,” Ana explains.

Jackson hides his next dig behind a fake cough, “Psychotic!”

“Fuck you, Jack!” She stalks from the room, and a door somewhere in the house slams behind her.

“You just name the place, sweetheart,” he calls after her. “You know where to find me.”

“Would you stop provoking her, please?”

“She’s really pregnant?” I feel like I’ve stepped into the twilight zone.

“Yeah, she’s fourteen weeks along.” Ana gives me an uneasy smile. “Come on, let’s get you settled in.” She grabs my hand and leads me from the kitchen down a narrow hall, pointing out Holly and Jackson’s rooms at one end. In the middle is a decent-sized bathroom, and further along two more rooms sit opposite one another. The one on the right is covered in clothes, and there’s a yellow doona sitting bunched up on top of the bed. No guesses as to who occupies that room.

I follow Ana into the room opposite. There’s a black and grey doona sitting on top of a double bed that barely looks like I’d fit in it, two bedside tables and a chest of drawers leaning against the side wall with chipped and peeling black paint. On the top sits a framed picture of my bike and another of Ana and her family, Jackson and Holly included. I pick up the frame and stare down into the posed shot.

“Do you like it? You can take it out if you like. I just thought you should have at least one picture of … family. I know you don’t have any of your mum and sister and no one should have a room without pictures.” She’s rambling again, and it’s so fucking sweet it’s giving me a damn toothache.

“I love it, I love all of it.” I make a gesture that includes the room around me. “Thank you.”

She smiles. “The police confiscated your clothes; more like they confiscated everything in that motel room, even your bike. Dad had to buy it back at police auction.”

He hadn’t told me that. It would have cost him a shitload of money too, considering how rare they are here in Australia. Money I’ll be paying back down to the last cent.

“Anyway, Holly and I went shopping last week for some basics. There isn’t much, but I’m sure we can take some things back if they don’t fit. And sorry about the bed, it was the only one we could find within our price range. I have a queen-sized one, and we can swap them over if you like? I really should have thought of that before. I guess I just forgot how big you were and now that you’re here—”

“Ana?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up. Everything’s perfect,” I say and then realise that doesn’t even begin to cut it. I take a step toward her. “You’re perfect.”

She backs out of reach. “Well, I should see about dinner. You probably felt like a quiet night alone, but my family doesn’t really do quiet. Ever, actually. So everyone is coming around for a BBQ a bit later. Surprise.” She throws her hands up and turns to leave.

“We gonna talk about this?”

“Talk about what?”

I raise my brow at that, and she steps back into the room and sits down on the bed, my bed. “You know, I haven’t had one of these since I was sixteen.”

“A bed?” she asks, as I sit down beside her.

“A bed, a room, a home.” I flop back onto the mattress and rest my hands on my chest. “My dad had a room at the clubhouse. After I went to juvie he sold the house. I wasn’t there anymore, and he hardly ever stayed there as it was. I think it just held too many memories of Mum and Lil, so he sold it. Sold all my shit, too. When I got out of lock–up the first time, the club came a-calling. I became a prospect, and prospects don’t amount to shit until they’re patched in, so I stayed on a clubhouse couch for the next year. Then I spent three years on the inside and after I got out, I roamed from one shitty motel to another, until now. Until you.”

“Well I’m glad you have a room—a home, now,” she says, and her voice cracks a little on the last word. Ana sat there, stiff as a board, throughout that story. She’s so different now. We’re different now. I grab her elbow and yank her back so she’s lying beside me, her arm flush with mine. She lets out a frustrated yelp that quickly turns into tears. For a moment I just let her cry, because though I hate the idea of her hurting, I know she has to work through everything she’s feeling with me being back.

When I can’t handle the silence any more, I link my hand with hers and say, “Talk to me, baby girl.”

“I can’t.”

“’Course you can.” I nudge. “If there’s one person in the world you can talk to about this it’s me.”

“I can’t fall back into things with you,” she blurts, and I’m glad we’re not facing one another because that hurt like a motherfucker and I’m sure it’s written all over my face.

“Can’t now? Or can’t ever?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers, like saying those words quietly is going to hurt me any fucking less.

“You still love me?”

“I don’t know that either.” She gets up and walks over to the door. The tears are openly streaming down her face now. She makes no move to wipe them away, she just stares at me from the doorway. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too,” I say.

Ana walks into the hall and then the few steps into her room and closes the door behind her. I can hear her gut-wrenching sobs from here. It tears and claws at something inside me, but I make no move to go to her. Right now I’m not what she needs, and that hurts more than hearing her say the words that ripped my heart into shreds.

Chapter Thirty Four Elijah

As good as it’d been to see Ana’s family again I breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed behind them